One World One Heart 2011

One World One Heart 2011

Winners
The random number generator has spoken. The recipients of the giveaways are:

• Martha in Toronto
  
• Halle in Minnesota
  
• Theresa in Conneticut
  
• Eileen in New York
  
• Jo in Cheshire
  

If you're one of these people, I've emailed you.

Thank you all for visiting my blog. Thanks also to Lisa, organizer of the One World One Heart events.



Welcome to my blog. I'm Paula and I'm obsessed with fibers. I'm currently into knitting mittens and my latest non-fiber thing is Doctor Who. I'm semi-retired which translates to I would work if I could find a part-time job I liked but I can't so I'll hang around the house and knit.

If you've just happened upon this post, then you might not know about One World One Heart. For all of the details, click on the link below the picture. The object of the exercise is for bloggers to visit other blogs and maybe find some new blogs to read. Participants entice people to visit by offering door prizes. Here are mine:

1. Malabrigo sock yarn, colorway Turner. 440 yard of fingering weight merino wool.
   
2. Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, colorway Wool in the Woods. 420 yards of fingering weight merino wool.
   
3. Crown Mountain Farms sock yarn, colorway Born to be Wild. 400 yards of fingering weight 50/50 merino/tencel.
   
4. Knitter's Grab Box. I have a lot of things around here that I'll never use but are much too nice to toss. I've popped most of them in a little blue box. They include: a pair of cherry wood knitting needles, size 17, a yarn ball key chain, a stitch counter, 4" scissors, a Ravelry Olympics Bobicus Maximus pin, 20 stitch markers from 6 different sources, and a combo ruler/bookmark/metric needle sizer.
   Not pictured are three Cookie A sock patterns (Summer Sox, Maelstrom, and Stricken). These are duplicates of patterns I already had and are NOT reprints.
   

The drawing is open to all active bloggers worldwide. To participate, leave a comment to this post with a way to contact you if you win. A link to your blog so I can visit would be great!

Winners will be picked on February 17 via a random number generator. Winners will be contacted individually and a list will be posted here.

Edited to add another prize:

See my 2/8/11 post for the story behind this.

More than I can chew

I'm overwhelmed with projects that I want to work on. When this happens, my brain seizes up and I end up ignoring everything and hanging out online. (This also happens with housecleaning. You do not want to see what this place looks like right now.) The list looks like this:

• Mittens: NaKniMitMo is over tomorrow. I have a pair of Camilla mittens started and a pair of Selbu gloves started. Neither will be completed in time. I'd ignore them, except they are both taking up space on dpns that will be needed for other things. There are at least two other pair I want to knit and am trying to forget.
  
• Family Jewels mystery sock KAL. I decided to do this before the mittens started calling to me. I have the kit. I won't be knitting along with this one, but am grabbing the pdfs for each clue as they appear.
  
• Cookie A KAL. I'm in a forum where there are monthly KALs from her new book. Again, I thought I wanted to do this before the mittens came to call. I might jump in on this in, say, six months.
  
• My Self-Inflicted Sock Club. I think I knit a pair in November. This is on hold until I can get my act together.
  
• Tea Cosy swap. In a moment on insanity, I signed up for this. I didn't even have a tea pot at the time, that's how crazy I am. It did give me a chance to go buy one. It looks like a little beehive and is very cute. I did make a tea cosy for my partner and can't decide if it is good enough to send. Rework the one I have or make a completely new one?
  
• Nerd Wars. It is kind of hard to describe this, since I'm not sure yet how it will work. I'm on Team Tardis. We'll be competing against teams of people in other nerdish areas, making stuff. I'm attempting to do a special three-month-long project called a dissertation in addition to the team projects. The dissertation's nearly ready to post, except that I have to justify it taking three full months. Maybe I should link to this list?
  

Take a chance

Shepherd Susie of Juniper Moon Farms posted on her blog about a person in need. He's an organic farmer in Vermont who lost nearly everything in a horrible barn fire. She started a modest fund raiser, with some prizes that would appeal to fiber fans. The word started to spread and she's gotten prize donations from all over the place. Go and check out the whole story and the list of prizes. You'll find a convenient donate button there. Take a chance and help someone in need.

Oh, and if a donation is too much for you to manage right now? You can still be in the drawing. Read down toward the bottom of the posting and it'll tell you how.

The fiber community is freaking amazing.

FO Friday

fo fri 1/14/11
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

I have been knitting this year. I just haven't used up an entire skein of anything so I haven't gotten around to calculating the yardage. I've got at least four more pair of mittens I want to make. I know it is a little crazy, but it is a lot of fun.

Goodies!

cthgoodie
Originally uploaded by Paula knits

This is the goodie bag that I got from the Cherry Tree Hill sale. I've bought grab bags from them before, so my expectations for a free bag were not high. I thought I'd end up with a bunch of orange cotton, a hunk of bulky yarn, some novelty yarn, and patterns I won't use. Still, I made sure I got an order in early enough to get some goodies (first 200 orders starting when the New Year began got these).

I was pleasantly surprised. I did end up with patterns I won't use. I did get some novelty yarn called Spangle (white in the picture), but I might actually use it. I did get a cotton/rayon blend (green in the picture), but I think it'll be good for weaving and the color's nice. I did get something partly orange, but it's wool sock yarn. The nicest item was 50 grams of laceweight alpaca in a purple semisolid. Pretty good for free.

The Year of Living Stashfully

I was feeling a little down on Christmas Eve, so I did some yarn shopping.

It was all on sale at Little Knits and The Dizzy Sheep. It was all semi-solids which I could use more of. It's Dream in Color Starry, Madelinetosh Sock, and Malabrigo Sock. It's just that I really don't need to be indulging myself like this. I've got a lot of yarn that I wanted as much as I did these and I need to start using instead of buying. I let myself buy a few more skeins of Cherry Tree Hill at the Supersock Store sale early this morning. (I bought all semi-solid, it was half price, and I get a Goodie Bag for being one of the early birds at the sale). That's it. I am not buying any more yarn for myself for any reason for at least until spring. I am not signing up for any more swaps that require me to buy yarn this year (upcoming Doctor Who swap is the only exception).